who had hardly more than learned their scales!
Besides this, Madame d'Avrigny begged her to come and dine with her,
when there would be only themselves, on Mondays, and then practise with
Dolly, who had not another moment in which she could take a lesson. She
should be sent home scrupulously before ten o'clock, that being the hour
at the convent when every one must be in. Jacqueline accepted all these
kindnesses gratefully. By Giselle's advice she hid her slight figure
under a loose cloak and put on her head a bonnet fit for a grandmother,
a closed hat with long strings, which, when she first put it on her
head, made her burst out laughing. She imagined herself to be going
forth in disguise. To walk the streets thus masked she thought would be
amusing, so amusing that the moment she set foot on the street pavement
she felt that the joy of living was yet strong in her. With a roll of
music in her hand, she walked on rather hesitatingly, a little afraid,
like a bird just escaped from the cage where it was born; her heart
beat, but it was with pleasure; she fancied every one was looking at
her, and in fact one old gentleman, not deceived by the cloak, did
follow her till she got into an omnibus for the first time in her
life--a new experience and a new pleasure. Once seated, and a little out
of breath, she remembered Madame Saville's letter, which she had slipped
into her pocket. It was sealed and had a stamp on it; it was too highly
scented to be in good taste, and it was addressed to a lieutenant of
chasseurs with an aristocratic name, in a garrison at Fontainebleau.

Then Jacqueline began vaguely to comprehend that Madame Saville's
husband might have had serious reasons for commending his wife to the
surveillance of the nuns, and that there might have been some excuse for
their endeavoring to hinder all intimacy between herself and the little
blonde.

This office of messenger, thrust upon her without asking permission,
was not agreeable to Jacqueline, and she resolved as she dropped the
missive, which, even on the outside, looked compromising, into the
nearest post-box, to be more reserved in future. For which reason she
responded coldly to a sign Madame Saville made her when, in the evening,
she returned from giving her lessons.

Those lessons--those excursions which took her abroad in all weathers,
though with praiseworthy and serious motives, into the fashionable
parts of Paris, from which she had exiled herself b